What music servers does Vagalume support?
As of v0.8, Vagalume supports any Last.fm-compatible music service. It has been tested with Last.fm and Libre.fm
And now a bit of history:
Vagalume was initially developed as a Last.fm client, and that's what it was from the first version until v0.7.1.
However, in March 2009 Last.fm announced some new restrictions in their radio streaming service (see here and here), which can be summarized as:
A project named Libre.fm was launched a few days after that, aiming to provide a free replacement for Last.fm, using the same API and protocols. Libre.fm is being developed as a free software project, and its source code is licensed under the GNU AGPL. That means that anyone can set up a Last.fm-compatible server to stream music.
Vagalume 0.8 was released with support for any server using the Last.fm/Libre.fm protocol. Thus, you no longer need a Last.fm account to be able to use Vagalume.
How do I select the server that I want to use?
You can select it in the 'Preferences' dialog.
But how do I add a new server?
To add a new server you need its connection data:
Vagalume 0.8 comes with settings to connect to Last.fm and Libre.fm. Additional servers can be added to the ~/.vagalume/servers.xml config file. Currently there's no way to enter that data from Vagalume itself (it must be written by hand), but you can download an existing servers.xml file an use the "Import servers file" menu entry.
See the Vagalume servers.xml file here as an example.
IMPORTANT: If you plan to create a derivative work of Vagalume and still want to connect to Last.fm, please don't use the Last.fm API key that comes with Vagalume. Get a free one here.
I get lots of "Invalid radio URL" with Libre.fm
Unfortunately Libre.fm is still in development and doesn't support all types of radios. As of December 2009, there's no "My library" or "My neighbours" (among others) in Libre.fm. You can start with "Music tagged rock" or something similar.
Can't I listen to music from Last.fm and scrobble to Libre.fm?
Not exactly, but there's a possibility.
First, you would need to define a new server in the ~/.vagalume/servers.xml file with the web services URL from Last.fm and the scrobbling URL from Libre.fm (or the other way around).
However Vagalume doesn't support having different usernames and passwords for the radio and for scrobbling (we'd like to add this feature in the future, though).
The only option that you have now is to have the same username and password on both places.
Can't I listen to both Last.fm and Libre.fm?
Vagalume does not currently support multiple accounts. If you are listening to Last.fm and you want to switch to Libre.fm, you have to go to the Preferences dialog and enter your Libre.fm user and password there.
I can't see the Last.fm server in my N900
Unfortunately these Last.fm restrictions don't allow streaming music to mobile phones, so the N900 version of Vagalume comes without the Last.fm data. You can still use Libre.fm, though.
Can't I just add the Last.fm data to the N900 version?
Since Vagalume is free software, there's no way to prevent you from doing that, but note that you might be violating the Last.fm terms of service. The Vagalume team takes no responsibility for that.
If you really want to do that, please don't use the Last.fm API key that comes with Vagalume. That API key is necessary to identify the client and you might be harming legitimate Last.fm users if you violate the terms of service using the Vagalume API key. Get a free key here.